Every year brings new clinical guidelines that could improve outcomes in veterinary medicine. For practitioners, the real question is whether and how to implement the various guidelines. The answer lies in examining guideline sources and adapting the recommendations to suit each situation. Dr. Douglas G. Aspros, AVMA president and a partner at three animal hospitals, believes guidelines are aimed at “making us better practitioners in an otherwise messy world of clinical practice.”

AVMA

Concerns that pain and suffering associated with declawing may be exacerbated in wild and exotic cats prompted the AVMA Executive Board to revise the Association’s position on the matter from opposition to condemnation.

Issues

The One Health Commission has begun inviting individuals and corporations to become members, along with institutions, and is expanding efforts to promote the one-health approach. The one-health concept is that human, animal, and ecosystem health are intertwined. The OHC advocates a one-health approach of collaboration among disciplines to improve health locally, nationally, and globally.

Practice

Gas permeable membranes could be used to capture ammonia in livestock wastewater, improving air quality in barns and providing concentrated nitrogen useful as fertilizer. Department of Agriculture officials described the membranes as similar to materials used in waterproof consumer products and to biomedical devices that add oxygen to blood and remove carbon dioxide.